H.B. gives homeless outreach group 60 days to leave library

Jan. 23, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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The Huntington Beach City Council gave the Beach Cities Interfaith Services homeless outreach group 60 days to vacate the Main Street Library for workplace and neighborhood safety reasons. CHRIS JEPSEN, FOR THE REGISTER

The Huntington Beach City Council gave the Beach Cities Interfaith Services homeless outreach group 60 days to vacate the Main Street Library for workplace and neighborhood safety reasons. CHRIS JEPSEN, FOR THE REGISTER

The Huntington Beach City Council on Tuesday gave a faith-based homeless outreach group 60 days to vacate the Main Street Library for workplace and neighborhood safety reasons.

Beach Cities Interfaith Services has been a tenant of the library for 25 years and is working with the city on moving to a new location, likely a former job center site on Gothard near Talbert.

Yet even with a city staffer assigned to expedite the case, the project won't be complete until mid-June at the earliest, according to an assistant city manager who spoke at the meeting, which could leave the group homeless itself for around three months.

"We will help you in any way we can, and we have told people from your organization over the years you let us know where you want to go," said Councilman Joe Carchio, an outspoken critic of the group, on Tuesday night. "We never got any feedback. Now, when your backs are against the wall, you're making it look like we're the ones who created your problems when we didn't."

Several downtown residents spoke in favor of the measure, citing the increasingly erratic behavior of "transients," as they referred to them, who camp out near the library on distribution days. It passed 5-1, with Mayor Pro Tem Matthew Harper dissenting.

A nonprofit funded by faith groups, Beach Cities Interfaith Services provides a number of services for the homeless and poor, such as filling prescriptions, buying groceries and bus passes and offering hygiene kits.

Clergymen and women associated with the group didn't oppose the move, but suggested staying the eviction until it can move into a new space.

"Homelessness is not simply an issue of those who fit the stereotypes that we have come to see on television and that we see in various parts of this community," said Michael Archer, a rector at St. Wilfrid of York and a Beach Cities board member.

Neighbors of the library gave a much different account of those who gather on the grass around the library from Tuesday to Friday, comparing it to Lions Park in Costa Mesa, which also sees many homeless people. They and Carchio said a library worker has been harassed and assaulted by the outreach group's clients, and said the eviction needed to go through as soon as possible.

"I know the BCIS means well, but the help it's providing is not motivating them to change their lives," said Lee Salkowitz, a teacher and mother who lives near the park.

Other speakers said that citizens were intimidated away from the library by the open drug use, public urination and sexual harassment that made them feel unsafe, and questioned why other churches like St. Mary's by the Sea can't provide a similar service in a more structured way.

Besides the eviction notice, the motion that passed included $11,444 in a city-permit fee reduction and authorized the city manager to lease the Gothard Street site from the county, which owns it, and sublease it to the outreach group.

Huntington Beach police Chief Kenneth Small said that similar problems might arise on Gothard Street – the site is close to the city sports complex – but that the new location would be preferable.

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